The two megastars chat about Chalamet’s new movie “Beautiful Boy”, in which the 22-year-old actor plays a teenage boy dealing with crystal meth addiction.

“I thought one of the traps of this role, especially as a nervous young actor, was going to be to lean into the seriousness of it,” Chalamet explains. “I didn’t want to try and be as hard on myself as possible, thinking that was what it would take to make it good.”

“After the last day of shooting, I had the strangest walk home. I didn’t even live it… but I still felt really affected, drained and a little devastated. The movie isn’t a downer because it is really redemptive and hopeful, but it did feel like a punch to the stomach.”

Photo: i-D mag

The two then discussed modern masculinity and how they’re attempting to change what it means to be “masculine” in their work.

“I would be so thrilled to know that the roles I’m playing are instigating change in some way,” Chamalet says. “I want to say you can be whatever you want to be. There isn’t a specific notion, or jean size, or muscle shirt, or affectation, or eyebrow raise, or dissolution, or drug use that you have to take part in to be masculine. It’s exciting. It’s a brave new world.”

Styles agrees: “I definitely think in the last two years, I’ve become a lot more content with who I am. I think there’s so much masculinity in being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be feminine, and I’m very comfortable with that.”

“You have this idea of what being masculine is and as you grow up and experience more of the world, you become more comfortable with who you are,” Styles continues. “Today it’s easier to embrace masculinity in so many different things — some of the times when I feel most confident is when I’m allowing myself to be vulnerable.”

Chamalet concludes: “If us having this conversation, in any infinitesimal way, can help anyone, a guy, a girl, realize that being vulnerable is not a weakness, not a social barrier. Humans are complex; we need to feel a lot of things. We are not homogeneous.”